


Alright (The Band Was Altogether)

by MerrilyGrey, Neutralchaos



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Drug Use, Emotionally Stunted Young Men, Homophobia, Hostile Work Environment, Hurt/Comfort, Long Lost Lover, M/M, One Night Stands, Oral Sex, Period Typical Attitudes, Period Typical Views Of Sex, Punk Steve Rogers, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Smoking, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 04:04:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerrilyGrey/pseuds/MerrilyGrey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neutralchaos/pseuds/Neutralchaos
Summary: Bucky Barnes is the frontman of the band The Winter Soldier, the new sound of Hydra Records. Between constant touring, parties every night, and a demanding manager, he is suffering from a bad case of writer’s block.Will the reappearance of his childhood sweetheart help him make music or will their reunion upend Bucky’s precarious balance and send him crashing into chaos?





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Neutralchaos for the incredible artwork and the inspiration to write this story! All the love, my friend.

 

The year was 1974 and they believed they were untouchable.

  
It was easy enough, between the champagne, the cocaine, the endless nights of music blasted through speakers that rattled bone, to forget one’s own mortality and simply live in the temporary day after day after day. That was the point of it all—that there was no point. There was only music, drugs, sex, and sound that stretched on into a blissful fog of forever.

  
Bucky awoke on a morning much like any other, in that it was no longer morning. An alarm clock perched on an unfamiliar bedside table announced the time to him. It was 12:47 and light outside.

  
“Shit,” he said, causing someone to stir on the other side of the mattress. A cooing voice asked an unformed hum of a question. He shook his head to quiet the owner of the bed.

  
“Late,” he whispered half to himself, gathering his things. Pants, billfold, keys, all within arm’s reach. It was a small room. Bucky pressed his lips to the cheek of the woman whose bed he shared and did not venture to guess her name. “Thanks,” he said. She rolled over, blonde hair strewn across her face, already nearing sleep again.

  
Bucky caught glimpses of himself in shop windows as he hurried toward more familiar ground. He smoothed down his hair, long and shaggy with little hope of keeping any secrets about the night’s activities. His clothes were rumpled and creased, but he straightened the collar before he entered the building. He rubbed a hand across his face to shake the sleep off.

  
“—said he would be here—”

  
“—and here he is,” he felt Natasha’s firm hand guide him into the middle of the room where his presence would not be missed. With a crunching feeling in his gut, he caught sight of their manager, Alexander, who had a permanent look of inconvenienced displeasure etched into his features. Bucky resigned himself to a long day. It wasn’t that Bucky didn’t like Alexander, it was that no one did.

  
“Hell-oh!” Alexander said in put-on voice that fairly reeked of cheer. For being after one-o’clock in the afternoon by the time Bucky heard it, it was still too early.

  
“Hello,” He responded with the kind of politeness that would satisfy his mother (God rest her soul).

  
Natasha stepped into stride with them, moving toward folding chairs set out on the side of the stage next to a cooler that held within it the promise of bottles of water. From the corner of his eye, Bucky could see Natasha’s auburn hair swing as she directed them across the room and navigated them through the roadies to have a seat together. He was grateful for the way their minds worked in sync, and for her silent influence. She did not need to ask their guest to have a seat, he would simply do it because she wanted him to.

  
“I was just telling Alexander here about your meeting, Bucky,” Natasha said with a smile so finely pointed that only he would note the sharpness behind it. He was meant to play along.

  
“Oh, right. Of course,” He said, coughing into his fist to hide a flutter of confusion.

  
“The traffic must have been a little bad to hold you up,” She glanced at Alexander. “Bucky’s very punctual.”

  
“So how did it go with the artist?” Alexander asked.

  
“Oh—” Bucky tried not to stumble over himself.

  
“It was only the introduction, you know.” Natasha said, jumping in to save him. “These things always take a couple of meetings to set up. We have to make sure that the artist’s vision matches our sound, you see. You can’t just slap any old picture on an album and call it good, after all. You need a sense of cohesion,” she stressed the last word as if she were explaining all the mysteries of the world to Alexander. His eyes grew wide like he was learning something new and fascinating.

  
“Right. Of course,” Alexander looked seriously at Bucky. “The label sees the work you’re doing.”

  
Natasha cleared her throat.

  
“All of you, certainly. Certainly,” Alexander said “The Winter Soldier is our rising star. We are all very proud of the band,” he rose suddenly, offering his hand to Bucky. “I have to make a call back to the office, just to let them know how things are coming along. I’ll be at the show tonight, and then it’s back to the office for me.”

  
“We’ll look for you after the show, then?” Buck asked, already sensing a wasted evening ahead.

  
“I wish I could, but I have an early flight.”

  
“Shame,” Natasha offered, guiding Alexander away from Bucky. “We will make it up to you next time you’re out. You must say hello to your wife for me. It’s been too…” her voice faded behind the curtain of moving equipment and the small talk of the guys. Bucky took advantage of his moment to slip backstage and find Sam and Clint. They were due for sound check.

  
Backstage, Bucky dropped the professional posture and slumped into a plaid armchair. His head had started the throbbing ache that would dog him for a few hours like the guilt he knew he ought to feel. After weeks of touring, there was hardly an album to put any art on. He was as dried up as his tongue, which stuck to the roof of his mouth. How could he write music when there were so many things to do? He took a swig of water from the bottle in his hand and rested his forehead against the cool plastic.

  
“Congratulations,” Clint said, sinking down on the couch next to him. “You look like as much of an idiot as you are.”

  
“Fuck off.”

  
“Was she any good, at least? If we’re not hiring her, you might as well have gotten something out of the deal.” he jabbed his elbow just a little harder than necessary into Bucky’s side. Bucky slid a little further into his chair.

  
“You gotta kick him while he’s down, Clint?” Sam’s voice joined Clint’s from the general direction of the couch. “Damn, she was fine, though.”

  
“She’s not a cow at the state fair, assholes. Quit sizing her up like a piece of meat,” Nat said, rounding the corner. “Judging from the look of you, though, you didn’t get a whole lot of sleep.”

  
Natasha stood over Bucky with one hand on her hip, the other extending a bottle of aspirin like a gift from the almighty. He nodded his thanks and accepted, taking a handful and swallowing in a gulp that ran down his chin.

  
“Pathetic,” Natasha said, looking over each of the boys in her band. “All of you. How’s about instead of getting your rocks off vicariously through our singer, you get your asses on stage, huh?”

  
“Yes, mom,” Clint said, rolling his eyes as he stood. Natasha gave him a short swat to the back of the head.

  
“Yes, ma’am, you mean,” she said, as they made their way back out to the stage.

 

For all the writer’s block and creative constipation that Bucky had suffered over the past six months, there was nothing better than playing their songs. Something broke inside of him and the floodgates opened when the music started. He changed. He was still himself, but more, better, stronger. When he sang, it was a high he never wanted to come down from.

  
He had everything he needed on that stage with him. Nat’s bass was a heartbeat. It made him sure of himself and confident in any choice he made. Sam’s guitar was a work of art in it’s own right and he made it sing like no other man on earth could. The way Clint drummed, with his energy and precision, made Bucky understand why armies took drummers with them to war. Together, they were unstoppable. They were The Winter Soldier because they could survive anything, from the darkest nights to nuclear winter.

  
When they were done making final adjustments and playing though the eponymous song from their debut album, Ghost Story, they heard the single man applauding in the audience. Bucky had forgotten that Alexander was even there.

 

“Oh shit! Have you seen this?” Clint asked, running into the dressing room with a piece of paper clutched in his fist. It was nearly showtime, and they could hear the murmur of people milling around outside.

  
“What?” Sam, Natasha, and Bucky asked in unison.

  
Clint unfolded the paper to reveal a flier. It was a sketch of Bucky’s face, a good likeness, if he looked at it objectively. There was only one problem with the flier, and Bucky pinpointed the reason for the expressions on his bandmate’s faces immediately: He was the only one on it.

  
“Guys, I’m sor—”

  
“No,” Nat said, holding up her hand to silence him.

  
“It’s a little late for that,” Clint said.

  
“Let’s hope anybody shows up, with your ugly mug all over the place,” Sam said. He was hardly done speaking before they were all laughing.

  
“I guess this is the moment to announce that I’m selling out and going for a solo disco career,” Bucky said, shrugging innocently. Clint collapsed in a heap of hysterics. As quickly as the tension arose, it vanished.

  
“But really, guys. You don’t mind too much? I didn’t even ask her to make us a poster. She just—”

  
“What do you mean, man?” Sam said. “It’s good and free. Who are we to stick our noses up at that?”

  
“Just don’t go thinking we’re your backup now,” Nat said, because then we will have to leave you out of all our art on purpose. The tone in Natasha’s voice told Bucky in no uncertain terms that this was no empty threat.

  
Clint sidled up to Bucky, holding a joint between his fingers with a look of expectation on his face.

  
“You gonna come outside and smoke this with me, or are you too cool now, Poster Boy?” he asked, although he already knew the answer. Bucky tucked it into the pocket of his jeans and followed Clint around the corner and out onto the loading dock with Nat and Sam in tow.

  
Perched on the elevated slab of concrete, Bucky had a view of the corner as he and the band smoked. They were undisturbed, hidden away as they were, but it was a good night for people-watching from his vantage point. A good number of the people milling around were clearly there for the show, decked out as they were in their most outrageous getups. There were platform boots and flared pants for miles. Between all the exposed midriff and tumbling hair, it would have been easy for Bucky to miss the passerby in the crowd, but there was something so familiar—so much like home—about a man who glided through the crowd, that he burned himself on the ash of the joint.

  
“Damn,” he said, correcting his grip and passing it to Nat. By the time he looked back, the man was gone, but he could have sworn… no. It was impossible that in this city of millions he had recognized the boy he knew as a teenager. It was drugs and lack of sleep and all the millions of thoughts in his head that brought the image of Steve Rogers to his mind. He had not actually seen him.

  
Bucky tucked the thought away for a better time and promised himself that he would think about Steve later. He always told himself that he would think about Steve later.

 

It was, as the poster promised, a sold out show. Maybe it had to do with the sheer number of the audience, maybe it was their frantic energy, maybe it was something about Bucky and the rest of the band, but a combination of factors made for one of their best nights in recent memory. Bucky felt an electric charge through the whole set unlike anything he could recall. He knew he was not alone, the rest of the band was in on it. They were all smiles when they finished their last encore. 

Bucky wanted to scream and jump up and down and throw himself all over someone and collapse from exhaustion and eat everything he could think of all at the same time when he came off stage. Instead he hugged the band let out a deep breath.

  
“Did that go as well as I think it did?” he asked Nat.

  
“Fuck yes it did!” She yelled, “Come on,” She pulled him back outside, along with Sam and Clint. He gulped down the cool night air like water. His shirt clung to him, catching a breeze. He was coming back into his body and it felt like his for the first time in months.

  
Sam took a couple of steps away, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, man,” he said to someone heading their way. “We’re not meeting fans tonight. We have a show in Jersey day after next if you’re able to make it. We’ll put you on the list if you’re cool.”

  
“Oh,” said a deep voice that made Bucky’s head spin. “That’s okay. I’m just. I mean. I know Bucky.”

  
“Hey Bucky,” Sam called over his shoulder, “This guy says he knows you.”

  
Bucky was already sprinting toward them. He stopped in front of Steve, unsure of what to do, except stare, wide eyed and disbelieving at Steve who was almost unchanged from the last time they saw each other nearly eight years ago.   
“It was you. I thought, but I wasn’t sure,” Bucky said.

  
“I thought you saw me, but I couldn’t be sure you’d still know me,” Steve said. He was still small, still short, still anything but delicate. He looked like his nose had come out on the losing side of a fight, more crooked since the last time they saw each other. There was a scrape on his chin that looked fresh. Bucky couldn’t help but feel some pride. Steve never knew when to quit.

  
“You good?” Bucky asked.

  
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Good show.”

  
“You saw it?”

  
“Of course I did. What else was I going to do?” just like that, it was as if eight years, two foster homes, multiple relationships, and a record deal had never happened. They were sixteen again and right back where they started.

Bucky turned back. Sam, Nat, and Clint were watching without a hint of propriety, as if the scene unfolding in front of them were part of a show on daytime television rather than the life of their friend. Fair enough, Bucky thought. They heard Steve’s name often enough to feel like they knew him after all these years.

  
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bucky said to his band mates before turning back to Steve. “Where are you staying?” He asked.

  
The journey to Steve’s apartment was surreal. Bucky wanted to reach for Steve just to make sure that he was really there and not a vivid hallucination that everyone else had played along with out of politeness. Steve was quiet. He always had been the type to pick his words carefully, so they took the subway and walked together with little conversation between them.

  
Bucky watched the way Steve’s jaw tightened when they reached Brooklyn. They passed familiar alleys, corners where they fought with boys from neighboring group homes, the school that Steve got kicked out of on his second day. Steve swallowed and Bucky watched his throat take back whatever it was he was thinking of saying.

  
Steve’s building wasn’t bad. He nodded in greeting to the man sitting on the stoop, who nodded in his own stopper after registering that Steve was a familiar face. Inside, there was dingy orange carpet, a musty smell, and a bare lightbulb by the mailboxes, but it was warm and dry.

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This is set in the 1970s and features characters who had no real sex education. The sex in this chapter is unsafe, and the materials used are also unsafe. A lot of poor choices are made in regard to sexual health in this encounter. This was written for historical realism, not to perpetuate these behaviors.   
> Please use protection, discuss your sexual history, and use water or silicone based lubricants. Get tested. Be safe.

 

Bucky had learned something about seeing people who occupied a place in his heart after a long absence. There were familiarities: the cadence of their voice, the structure of their muscles, the little subconscious twitches and turns of their mind that made them who they are. Perhaps it was the soul that did not change. Maybe it was personality. Whatever it was, there were things that remained constant in people despite their deepest desires for change.

  
Then, there was the undeniable, sometimes painful, but always present truth that many things did change. No matter how tightly clung to, memories shifted like sand over the course of time. Change was predictable in its unpredictability, there was some comfort in that.

  
Steve stood before Bucky when they reached his small apartment. Bucky followed him there without thought and hardly a word to his bandmates. He would have followed Steve to the end of the world if Steve kept walking. Now, though, as he stood just inside the door, watching Steve take off his jacket, Bucky almost wished he hadn’t come.

  
Being there was gut-wrenching in a way that neither of them expected. Seeing Steve’s downward smile and shrug when there were no words worth saying was like chewing glass. They had a silent language both knew better than their native tongue. It was easier than breathing to discern each other’s thoughts, which sent them both into a spiral of silence.   
What was there left to say?

  
 _I’m sorry?_ That wasn’t right. Neither had done wrong by the other. Not really. They had been kids, after all.

  
 _I missed you?_ How could they venture words like that when simple questions were still beyond their grasp?

  
_I miss you? I miss you still, when you are standing right here in front of me? Where did you go and where are you now? Why didn’t you look for me? Fucking speak up? Say something, God damn it!_

  
Each word got lost in their throat on the way and left them standing in the quiet, interrupted only by the music playing in the room next door.

  
There was laughter in the neighbor’s apartment. He could hear people moving around, dancing, the distant consonant-rich speech of a neighbor speaking a language he did not understand. Against this backdrop, Bucky’s world had narrowed into tunnel vision. There was only this room and the man in it, who he did not know if he knew anymore. What could he say to a stranger who he used to love?

  
“Are you going to stand there all night?” Steve asked.

  
“I might.” Bucky crossed his arms, feeling the challenge settle over him. In the past, he would never have proven himself more stubborn, but eight years may have improved his chances. If this was a standoff he would face if it meant saving face. It was easier to present a tough façade than to admit his nerves.

  
“Fine.” He said, picking up his jacket, ready to shrug it back on and usher Bucky right back out again.

  
“No.” Bucky reached out a hand. Rather, the hand shot forward of its own volition. He was not sure what he meant by it. It was not an attack, nor an embrace. He was grasping at straws, holding on to something that may have been lost years ago. Reaching out for forgiveness that he may never receive.

“Fuck is this?” Steve asked, shaking his head, his melancholy smile still in place. “What are we doing, Buck?”

  
“I’m sorry?” Confusion settled around Bucky like fog.

  
“There is is!” He said, throwing his hands into the air. “You’re sorry.”

  
“Is—is that? Are you mad?”

  
“Of course I am,” Steve said.

  
“I don’t understand.”

  
“You don’t. You don’t know why you’re sorry, either,” Bucky knew that the fight was already lost. He shouldn’t have let Steve get started. Once he was on a roll, there was no reeling him back in. Steve had a wild look in his eye like he had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth next, but if he did not speak he might burst into flames. “You’re sorry that I’m pissed off. You’re sorry for what happened. You’re sorry for all the pain and sadness in the whole God damn world. What are you really, Bucky? Do you even know?” He paused for breath.

  
“Steve,” Bucky took a step toward him, like approaching an injured animal. This was going all wrong. “I’m still me. I’m still your—” friend? Was that what they had been. “Bucky,” he said. “I’m Bucky.”

  
“You’ve been gone for so long,” Steve said when the silence grew too heavy between them. “When I saw you up there on stage, sounding like you did, I didn’t know if it was really you,” Steve stepped toward him in turn. “Bucky, I’m still angry, but not at you. I never was.”

  
Bucky exhaled. He felt lightheaded.

  
“Well shit, Steve. Now I really don’t understand.”

  
“Understand this,” Steve took Bucky’s collar in both hands and drew him down for a kiss.

  
It was not gentle, not the kind of kiss that Bucky had become accustomed to from the lips of people he did not really know nor wished to get to know better. There was no finesse and no taste of alcohol under Steve’s breath. It was a hungry kiss. It was a kiss like begging, like shouting.

  
“What do you want?” Bucky asked.

  
“I want you to make good on everything you promised,” Steve said.

  
It was easier than apologizing, easier than fighting, and better. Bucky could do this for Steve and for himself. His hands touched Steve’s face and brought it back to his. This time, he let himself feel everything about this man and filled up the abscess that had been left in his wake for so long.

  
Steve was sharp with jaw and shoulders and elbows all jutting forward and no padding to soften him for the world. He was small enough to fit just right under Bucky’s hands as they raked up his back under his shirt. Steve had no patience for the slow unraveling of a ceremonious undressing. He shirked off his shirt as soon as Bucky pushed it up and reached for the button on Bucky’s blue jeans. Bucky was in no mood to protest.

  
“Over there,” Steve said, inclining his head toward the living room where a mattress lay on the floor, covers strewn across it unmade. They shed the rest of their clothes as they took the few steps to it. Bucky dropped to his knees on the bed over Steve who had thrown himself back as if this were the end of any other long day.

  
Steve rested his head on an arm, folded casually behind his head and looked up into Bucky’s eyes. The look of frank intimacy, so abruptly different from their interaction in the doorway, threw Bucky into momentary hesitation.   
“You know what to do, right?” Steve raised an eyebrow and suppressed a laugh.

  
Shaken from his hesitation, Bucky attached his lips low on Steve’s neck and sent shivers running down his spine. He ran his hand along his body, down to Steve’s thigh to bring them closer together. Glancing up, he saw that Steve’s eyes were closed, the crease between his eyebrows deepening, lips parting slightly in pleasure. Bucky allowed himself a quiet half-smile and moved his hips, eliciting a moan from Steve that he vowed he would carry with him forever.

  
Bucky wanted to kiss every part of Steve, to bring that sound out of him again and again, to make him feel better than either of them had ever felt. He pressed his hands between them rising up enough for a bird’s eye view of the man below him, and sinking down lower along Steve’s body. He kissed down Steve’s chest, his abdomen, and closed his lips around Steve’s cock, already hard between his bent knees.The weight and warmth of Steve in Bucky’s mouth was as satisfying to Bucky as it was for Steve. He closed his eyes and rocked into it with his whole body, taking everything Steve had to give him.

  
Steve’s hands were clenched into fists, nails making small crescent bruises in his palms from holding back as Bucky’s lips moved up and sank lower down every time he bobbed his head. There was a practiced finesse in the way he did it that Steve chose not to linger on. Bucky was putting on a show for him. If he had been able to smirk with Steve’s prick in his mouth, he would have done it.

  
Bucky had the rhythm going and was lost in it. He wasn’t sure how long he had been at it, only that Steve’s leg was shaking and his breathing was shallow. Two quick pats to Bucky’s shoulder from the palm of Steve’s hand drew Bucky away. He looked up to see Steve flushed all the way down from his face, across his heaving and bony chest, down his concave belly, to the place between his legs where Bucky rested.

  
“You tapping out?” Bucky asked.

  
Steve nodded. “For now,” he said, “don’t want it to be over before it starts.” He reached for Bucky’s face, captured him by the jaw and drew him into a kiss, pulling his body up to stretch across him like a blanket. The expanse of skin against skin made Bucky want everything at once.

  
He remembered their hurried nights together, years past. Pajamas pulled down only as far as necessary, trying like hell not to rustle the sheets, with the fear of god in them both. Lying on top of Steve now, as naked as the day they came into the world, making any sound that came to them seemed worlds away from the old days. Bucky couldn’t keep himself from watching Steve with wonder.

  
“I can’t believe—“ Bucky whispered.

  
“Don’t start,” Steve said and cut him off with a kiss. He grabbed Bucky’s ass and rolled his hips, gaining momentum again. They kissed and Bucky poured all his thoughts into it. If Steve wouldn’t hear it, maybe he would feel it instead.

  
“Give me a minute, okay?” Bucky said, rising up from Steve’s lips just enough for air. Steve nodded. Reassured, Bucky retreated to the bathroom, not stopping to examine every book and art piece in Steve’s home on the way, though he felt the temptation. The bathroom was down a short hallway, out of sight from Steve’s bedroom door which made things easier.

  
He closed the door and locked eyes with himself in the mirror. His hair was mussed and his cheeks were a vibrant pink. He looked deeply fucked already, almost high, with his pupils the size of saucers. He supposed he was. Sex was intoxicating in a way.

  
He looked in the medicine cabinet and found nothing very helpful. No Vaseline, no baby oil, nothing. “C’mon, Steve.” He said to himself. He glanced at the tub and noticed a bottle of conditioner. He looked at his reflection, asking himself if it was worth it. The answer he found in his own half smile was an emphatic yes. Desperate times, and all. He suppressed a smile, even from himself and got to work.

  
Emerging from the bathroom a few moments later, he found Steve where he left him. He was reading, one hand behind his head, the other holding a book that Bucky had been meaning to pick up. It was a novel about a revolutionary war hero who shot another revolutionary war hero. Despite being about old dead guys, everybody was talking about it.

  
“Any good?” Bucky asked.

  
“Yeah, actually,” Steve said, looking up from the page.

  
“Well don’t let me interrupt you,” Bucky said, pressing his lips to the spot behind Steve’s ear that he knew he liked.   
“That’s not distracting at all,” Steve said. He tossed the book off the bed. Bucky took the opportunity to straddle Steve’s waist.   
“You still want everything we talked about? You know, back when…”

  
Steve rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know,” he said. The words came out rushed and with an edge, but they softened when he said “Yes, I still want it. You. I never stopped.”

  
Bucky kissed Steve, brought his hand down to Steve’s cock and worked him up again. It did take long. Without the atmosphere of performance that he had projected into the blowjob, he sank down onto Steve’s cock and let himself feel it.  
Bucky didn’t know if this was Steve’s first time. He knew better than to assume anything with Steve. He, Bucky, had done this and that and everything in between more times than he could count. This, however, was different. Nothing that had happened before this felt like it mattered anymore. It was all inconsequential compared to Steve, who was looking into his eyes with certainty, but without demand. Bucky rolled his hips and Steve’s hands came down to grasp them.

  
Steve moved in tandem with Bucky. He planted his feet on the mattress, bent his knees, and rolled his hips in time with Bucky’s, pushing sounds out of him that Bucky never expected to make. Bucky held on, realizing that, although he was on top, he was being fucked completely and totally. He let go and let Steve do it, bracing himself for everything Steve wanted to do.

  
“Come here,” Steve said, and kissed Bucky. The kiss was gentle, easier than any they had shared. Perhaps it was the contrast between Steve’s cock and his lips, or maybe it was the way he said the word come. Bucky couldn’t hold back the orgasm that burst through him, rippling up his spine.

  
He was coming down, settling back into himself and taking in deep lung fulls of breath when Steve found his own release. Warmth spread across Bucky’s thigh. Steve’s expression was rapturous and obscene. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to live suspended in that moment forever. Bucky let himself revel in it and then rolled onto his back next to Steve.   
He blinked at the ceiling and heard Steve’s labored breathing at his side. These were not the great panic breaths that Bucky remembered from their youth together. This sounded much better than the kind of gasping that haunted Bucky’s worst moments of worry. Bucky leaned over to crack the window open, then reached for his jeans and dug into the pocket for his cigarettes.

  
“You mind?” He asked.

  
“Help yourself,” Steve said. He watched Bucky light up and take a drag.

  
“You feel better?” Bucky asked, exhaling toward the ceiling.

  
“Yeah,” Steve said. Bucky let his ash fall into an empty glass on Steve’s bedside table. A record and a pile of albums sat next to the table in a jumble of disorganization. They had the look of frequent use, reminiscent of Bucky’s own collection. It would have made Sam pull his hair out to see the way Steve let his albums lay broadside down without their jackets. Bucky didn’t care much, as long as they were good albums.

  
He leaned over and picked up the nearest record, then the next, then the next. He let out a soft laugh.

  
“Lou Reed, Eno, Bowie,” he named the artists as he saw them. “I could have guessed,” Bucky shook his head and looked over his shoulder at Steve with a knowing smile. He took another drag of his cigarette, conscious of the way he hollowed his cheeks. Steve did not rise to Bucky’s teasing.

  
“And?” Steve asked, unconcerned.

  
“You’ve always been in art school, even before you went to art school,” Bucky said, but fondly. He laughed a little harder when he glanced at the record player itself. “You’ve got the Stooges on. Steve, don’t tell anybody I told you so, but you’re a punk.”

  
“I’d say you were the punk, tonight,” Steve said, with the same casual tone. He did not crack a smile until he met Bucky’s eye, but when he did it glowed.

 

 

Morning crept up slowly, meeting Steve and Bucky like an unwelcome chore. There was a question that lingered in Bucky’s mind which he dared not pose out loud to Steve for fear of an answer. He could hardly stand the idea of leaving; walking out of this room was one step closer to leaving New York again was one step away from Steve for who knew how long? Would they see each other again?

  
Bucky thought about his usual mornings after. He had perfected the art of silently gathering his things, picking up keys without letting them jingle together, closing doors behind him without a sound. He did not want to do that this time. He looked at Steve’s sleepy face, still awake and hanging on to the night they had not allowed to end.

  
“Where’s The Winter Soldier going next?” Steve asked.

  
“We have a show in Newark tomorrow,” Bucky ignored the face Steve made. “I’d invite you, if you weren’t going to be a prick about Jersey.” 

  
“Do you blame me?” Steve asked.

  
“Yes. Jersey is fine. Springsteen is from New Jersey. There’s a lot of good music there.”

  
Steve scoffed, but smiled. “You really want me to come?” He asked.

  
“I want to see you again,” Bucky said. The words were out before Bucky could cram them back into his mouth. Steve looked him over with a critical eye, sizing him up as if this whole night had been a decision in the making and he was reaching his conclusion at last.

  
“Alright,” Steve said, with a definitive nod of his head. “Tomorrow night. I’ll be at the show.”

  
“Good,” Bucky tried not to tip his hand, but the relief hung heavy in his voice. “That’s great. I’ll put you on the list.”

  
The goodbye kiss that Bucky had been dreading became a kiss of anticipation instead. There were plans, a promise of more. Bucky couldn’t remember the last time he had made plans with anybody who didn’t own a guitar. He left Steve’s apartment feeling more like himself than he could ever remember.

 

 

The hotel lobby was full of the road crew, technicians, and the rest of The Winter Soldier when Bucky returned to the hotel. So much for a quiet morning, Bucky thought to himself as he entered to a round of applause and lurid jeering from his comrades. It was nothing new, he was used to the treatment that his escapades brought him when he returned to his home on the road. This time, though, it felt different. He wasn’t in the mood to expound on his conquest. Steve wasn’t somebody to talk about like that.

  
“You look like you need this,” Sam said, handing Bucky a cup of coffee. The styrofoam cup was warm and welcome in his hand and he looked into Sam’s eyes with gratitude as he downed it all in one swig.

  
“Thanks, man,” Bucky said.

  
“C’mon,” Sam said and walked Bucky over to the round couch were Clint and Natasha were waiting, having a heated debate about something Bucky did not have the energy to engage with.

  
“I’m just saying, you’d get better sound with a— oh shit, you look terrible,” Clint cut himself off to greet Bucky.

  
“Coming from you, that’s quite the compliment,” Bucky said, lighting a cigarette and resting his head against the back of the couch.

  
“We got a—“ Natasha started, but was cut off by a man in a hotel uniform.

  
“Excuse me, Mr. Barnes. You have a call,” The concierge said in a polite voice, ignoring Bucky’s state of wreckage.

  
“Hold that thought,” Bucky said to Natasha and followed the concierge to the desk. He picked up the phone with a feeling of trepidation. Was it Steve? Already? Instead he heard the disgruntled muttering of Alexander on the other end of the line. Whatever it was, he was not happy. “Hello?”

  
“Barnes?” Pierce said. Skipping right past the niceties, Bucky noticed. Well, shit.

  
“Yes. What’s going on, Alexander?”

  
“I half expected you to be on your way to god damn Canada. Looks like you’re still around, more’s the pity for the rest of us. What did you do to that artist? She just called me and quit. This is your fucking problem,” Alexander fumed at him.   
“Huh,” Bucky said. Looked like Alexander was in one of his moods. Which was bad news for him, the band, and the rest of the citizens of Planet Earth (but, mainly Bucky, who was Alexander’s favorite emotional punching bag on bad days). Bucky repressed a sigh and settled in for a long tirade.

  
“First she’s making posters for your show, now she’s up and quitting on your album. You say you have some creative vision. Does that include meeting your deadline? I certainly hope so, for your sake. If I get some swill from you after this catastrophe, you’re going to be looking for a new set of lungs along with a new manager. You’re on thin. Fucking. Ice. Is that cold enough for you, winter man?”

  
“Alexander, we’re still on tour. It’s going to be—“

  
“Barnes, we extended your deadline once already. You don’t get anymore get out of jail free cards. I want good news by tomorrow. Understand? Winter Soldier may be the new face of the label, but don’t think for a second that I won’t make your life a living hell if I think you’re out there fucking around. You have shows to play and an album to record. Get it done.”

  
The click and buzz on the other end of the line signaled that Alexander was finished with that particular conversation. Bucky did his best not to look like he had been yelled at by his boss. The man on the other side of the desk took the phone back discreetly and said in a quiet but understanding voice “It sounds like he would get along well with the general manager of this place. Have a good day, sir.”

  
Bucky tipped the man a dollar for his trouble.

  
“What happened? You were on cloud nine a minute ago.” Clint said. “Was that the clinic? Do you have the clap? HEY EVERYBODY! BUCKY’S GOT—“

  
Bucky tackled Clint and hit him hard on the side of the knee to make him shut up before he could finish shouting his sentence. Clint got Bucky in a headlock in retaliation before Natasha swooped in.

  
“Well,” Bucky said, one ear firmly held between Natasha’s sharp fingers. He could only assume Clint was getting the same treatment. “The bad news is, the artist dropped out. Alexander is pissed.”

  
Natasha dropped Bucky’s ear. He massaged it gingerly, feeling vaguely nostalgic about his time in the charity home that some of the more disciplinarian nuns used to run. Natasha would have fit in pretty well there.

  
“Damn it, Bucky. What did you do to her?” Nat asked.

  
“Nothing. Why does everybody assume this is my fault?”

  
“Well, did you call her back?” Sam asked, turning the page of his newspaper, as if the scene playing out in front of him were a relaxing morning. By their standards, it was.

  
“Oh,” Bucky slumped back in his seat, “I guess not. I didn’t think she expected—“

  
“Bucky’s fault.” Clint and Sam said in unison.

  
“Don’t worry too much,” Nat said, “Alexander is always pissed. It’ll work out.”

  
Bucky’s mind had already wandered away from the issue. There were other artists in the world. There were other amazing, incredible artists who needed a paycheck. There were people who he personally knew, a person, in fact, who would be at their next show.

  
“Steve.” Bucky said, as if the matter was settled.

  
“Oh, yeah. How’d it go?” Sam asked.

  
“No, I mean Steve’s an artist who could do it.”

  
Clint, Sam, and Natasha all exchanged glances.

  
“Didn’t he kind of—“ Clint hedged around the words.

  
“Destroy you?” Natasha interrupted.

  
“You’ve been kind of preoccupied with him for, I mean, about as long as I’ve known you, man. Don’t get me wrong, you have written some of your best stuff about him. Just, he left you pretty broken hearted,” Sam said, in his most gentle voice.   
Bucky leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

  
“No, guys. You’ve got it all backwards. I left him. I didn’t want to, but that’s how it happened.”

  
“So when you wrote ‘Assassin’ and ‘Longing’ and ‘Freight Car’ those were all—“ Natasha began.

  
“Those were all about me. I was writing about myself, from the perspective of the person who got bailed on. It was sorta like, I don’t know. Like closure?”

  
A look of understanding dawned on Bucky’s band mates. He could feel himself turning several shades of red as he revealed his process. It wasn’t something he made a point of keeping secret, it had just never come up in conversation.

  
“It’s a lot easier to sound like a good person if you’re not writing about how you abandon and hurt all the people you love,” Bucky said, shrugging.

  
“Whoa,” Sam said, “you love him?”

  
“I mean,” Bucky stopped to consider if he was ready to say it. “Yeah,” he braced himself for the inevitable. “I pretty much always have. He’s like a limb— I’ve been making do without him, but I don’t want to.”

  
“So,” Natasha said, looking around at the band, “sounds like Bucky has this under control. Good intervention, everybody.”

  
“Okay!” Clint rose from his seat and clapped his hands together. “Please nobody make me talk about emotions again for at least two weeks. That was exhausting and now I have to go do something performative and hyper masculine.”

  
Natasha rolled her eyes and followed him back toward the rooms. Sam took another sip of his coffee and leaned in closer to Bucky.

  
“Hey man, I think it’s real good that Steve’s around again. If he’s going to be around, I want to get to know him.”   
“Thanks, Sam,” Bucky said. “I think you will like him.”

  
“As long as he makes you happy, then I’ll like him,” Sam said.

 

Bucky was sitting in front of his typewriter, staring into the endless abyss of a blank white sheet of paper, when his phone rang. The clanging of the bell shocked him out of his creative stupor.

  
“Hello?”

  
“Hey, Bucky?” He recognized Steve’s voice instantly.

  
“Steve! Hey. How are you?” Bucky asked, immediately regretting his level of enthusiasm.

  
“Not bad. I’m glad I caught you while you’re still in town.”

  
“Yeah. We head out tomorrow morning,” Bucky said.

  
“Okay, cool. If you want, there’s some people getting together to go to an art show tonight and I thought maybe you’d want to come. I saw your world a little, so maybe you’d like to see what I have been getting up to,” Steve said.

There was a part of Bucky’s brain that wanted to say no, just so that he didn’t look to eager. That part was instantly overruled by every other molecule of Bucky which were all screaming in unison to see Steve again as soon as possible.

  
“Yes. That sounds great. Where is it?”

 

 


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Violence. It happens offscreen and we only see the aftermath in the chapter, but heads up.

 

By the time Bucky showed up at the Hotel Chelsea, he was fifteen minutes later than Steve had suggested, wearing the fourth outfit that he had picked out. He had no idea what he was getting into and the last thing he wanted to do was look like an idiot in front of Steve’s friends. The minute he arrived, his fears were assuaged.

  
The people loitering on the sidewalk were a collection of different counterculture subsets. There were punks and glam kids and freaks all milling around in their groups, smoking and talking.

  
“Hey, mister.” A lady wearing torn fishnets and a leather jacket stumbled toward him. “You got a cigarette?”

  
Bucky shook the packet toward her and she grabbed one. When their eyes met, a spark of recognition flickered.

  
“I know you!” She said, “You’re in that band, right? You was on the radio. Babe!” She called over her shoulder, “Come meet this guy his band is really good.”

  
At that moment, a familiar voice caught his attention.

  
“Buck!” Steve called him over from the front door. Like a magnet, Bucky was pulled forward, leaving the woman behind. “I thought I’d save you,” Steve muttered, “You get stuck talking out there, you’ll never get free.”

  
“You hang out here a lot?” Bucky asked.

  
“Not anymore,” Steve said. “A few years ago, yeah. There are some people I want you to meet, though.”

  
They made their way into the lobby where people of all kinds were milling around. A group of people welcomed Steve and Bucky into their midst, looking at them both with polite curiosity.

  
“Guys, this is Bucky. Buck, this is Luis, Scott, Wanda, and Sharon.”

  
Bucky’s eyes landed on Sharon with an alarming sense of recognition.

  
“Oh, Bucky and I are acquainted. How are you, Bucky?” Sharon asked, erasing all hope that she might have a sister.

  
“I’m pretty good, thanks. Look, I’m really sorry things didn’t work out with the album cover, uh, thing,” Bucky finished awkwardly.

  
“Please, I’m not,” Sharon shook her head. “I got a fantastic commission. I’m sure you’ll find someone to do the job. Hate to leave you hanging, but I really couldn’t turn this project down.”

  
“That’s,” Bucky struggled to find the right response. He was so relieved that he was not at fault for her quitting, “great!” He said.

  
“Congratulations, Sharon. It’s the mural at City Hall, right? The city’s paying you?” Steve asked.

  
“Yes,” Sharon said. “I submitted my application months ago. I figured they’d lost it.”

  
The chit chat continued in that vein for some time. Bucky was able to contribute little, with the exception of enthusiasm and encouragement. Instead, he took advantage of the opportunity to observe the room. The art hanging around the lobby was as varied as the occupants. He could see why Steve brought him there, if only for a taste of the scene he inhabited.

  
“That’s one of mine,” Steve said under his breath, leaning in so that just Bucky could hear him. He had never been one to draw attention to himself, preferring to let his art speak for itself. Bucky liked that about him.

  
The drawing was pen and ink, a black and white sketch of faces and limbs that grew twisted in and out of one another. It had a dreamlike quality that felt familiar. Bucky felt like he could look at it for years and find something new in it every time he stopped to study it.

  
“Oh,” he said, wandering over to have a closer look.

  
“Yeah,” Steve said, not quite meeting Bucky’s eye. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  
Bucky’s face, younger, more boyish, perhaps the way Steve remembered him from before, looked back at him from behind the glass. In the portrait, he was looking over his shoulder, body facing away, rising from a tangle of legs belonging to people he didn’t know. He had a steely gaze, as if he was challenging the viewer to follow him, but at their own peril.

  
“I didn’t know you could do this,” Bucky said.

  
“You like it?” Steve asked.

  
“It’s something else, Steve.”

  
Steve rubbed the back of his neck and looked over to his friends, determinedly not meeting Bucky’s eyes again. There was a faint pink tint in his cheeks, set off by Bucky’s praise. Bucky followed Steve’s line of vision and caught the knowing smile of Sharon, who was watching them with casual interest.

  
“We’re going out for a drink, if you’d like to come,” She told them. They followed the group outside without further discussion.

 

The bar was not far away. Sharon, Steve, and the rest of their friends planted themselves at a table with the familiarity of regulars. Steve got up to get drinks and left Bucky in an uncomfortable position as a stranger among friends of his friend, neither unwelcome nor fully accepted.

  
“So,” Bucky said, turning to Sharon. “The other night, that wasn’t exactly a coincidence, was it?”

  
Sharon laughed with a full smile, so charming that it would have been impossible to be anything but entranced by her. She shook her head, blonde locks swishing around her delicate features and strong jaw. There was no hint of apology in her expression.

  
“Not exactly, no,” she said. “I didn’t plan it, if that’s what you mean. When I saw you I knew you from Steve’s art and the way he talks about you.”

  
“That seems like the thing you ought to tell a guy.” Bucky said, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Steve at the bar.  
“It didn’t come up. I don’t recall a great deal of conversation on either of our parts” Sharon said.

  
Bucky supposed she had a point. He had never expected to talk to her again. Showed him right, he figured. Of course she would turn out to be the friend of his long-lost, well, whatever Steve was.

  
“So what now?” Bucky asked.

  
“C’mon, Bucky, don’t be a spoil-sport. Most of the time I don’t have a man and that’s how I like it. I’m not interested in entering some torrid, terrible love triangle with you. As for the art, well, Steve’s the obvious choice. You have asked him already, haven’t you?”

  
“I was going to ask him to come on tour with us tonight,” Bucky said, taken aback by Sharon’s bluntness.

  
“Well, thank goodness you have some sense. Hey, Steve, Bucky has a proposition for you,” Sharon said as Steve returned with their drinks. The flush returned to Steve’s face again, and Bucky felt his own face get hot. Sharon laughed. “Calm down, both of you. Not everything is about sex. Honestly, you’re like a couple of teenagers.”

  
“What’s up?” Steve asked Bucky, pointedly ignoring Sharon’s commentary.

  
“Now that Sharon is taking the mural job, I was hoping you might be willing to come on tour with us for a couple of weeks and work on the album art for The Winter Soldier’s next project.” Bucky asked.

  
“On tour with you?”

  
“Well, yeah,” Bucky shrugged. “We had to stall the record company, so Natasha sold them a load of bull about it being a conceptual piece where the artist would get to know us and come live on the road with us and stuff and then we could have the art done later. Honestly, it’s more an excuse to get you paid more and not turn anything in until later, but it could also be a cool way to do it. On the other hand, you’ll be stuck on the bus with us for at least two weeks and you probably won’t get your own room and we live on diner food and sometimes it is really boring,” Bucky realized he was digging his own grave and decided silence might sell his idea better than his own words. He shrugged. “So? What do you think?”

  
“Yes!” Steve blurted out. “I mean, it sounds like a good job, and I could use it right now. Thank you for considering me.”   
They left the bar, but didn’t make it to the gallery.

  
With some friendly shoving from Sharon and Steve’s irresistible lingering looks that grew longer whenever he thought Bucky wasn’t looking, there was nothing in the world that could keep Bucky from leaning close to Steve’s ear as the night went on and asking him if he wanted to go back to his place. Steve’s expression turned into one of such stony seriousness that Bucky nearly expected rejection, but the way Steve grabbed his hand and signaled for him to follow was all the reassurance he needed that rejection was the farthest thing from Steve’s mind.

  
They made it to Steve’s apartment, out of breath and laughing. Steve’s mouth was on Bucky’s the moment the door was closed behind them and soon Bucky was breathless for entirely different reasons.

 

 

Jersey came too soon. Bucky had long felt more at home on the road with his band than anywhere else. His family was Natasha, Sam, and Clint. As long as there was gas in the tank and music on the radio, they had nothing to fear and everything they needed. Now, for the first time that Bucky could remember in years, he wanted to stay in New York. It was with heavy regret that he loaded his guitar and himself onto the bus.

  
“Hey,” Sam said, nudging Bucky over to take the seat next to him.

  
“Morning,” Bucky said, nodding in greeting.

  
“I saw you last night, when you came in,” Sam said. There was no edge in his voice, no tone of judgement, nothing worth getting his back up about, but too many conversations had started that way in Bucky’s life. He felt the defensiveness rise in him like bile.

  
“Yeah? And?” He asked in a low growl.

  
“You sat down with a notebook. Look, I promised myself I wasn’t going to bother you about it. You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know I’m happy for you. I know how it is when the light turns back on.”

  
Bucky relaxed against Sam’s shoulder. The worry about his judgement drained away as quickly as it had come, replaced by a bone deep exhaustion he had not realized he was carrying with him.

  
“Thanks, Sam,” Bucky said. “Sorry.”

  
“Nothing to be sorry for. It’s been a hard run and it ain’t over. You and me and the rest of us have been doing a lot. When this is over, I’m going to a beach and not answering any phone calls for a month.” He allowed himself a soft laugh, imagining that future. “How about you? What are you going to do after tour?”

  
Bucky tried to imagine what he would do with his free time, if he had any, after this marathon of shows and hotel rooms and highways. The only thing he could see at the end of the tunnel was Steve. Steve was all he wanted in the end. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts linger there, in Steve’s little apartment, sprawled out in bed, tangled up in sheets and limbs, surrounded by records. He would write and Steve would draw. What would it be like for something to be so easy?

  
He massaged his temples and opened his eyes. The daydream died away, replaced by the bus and the band and the other work that lay ahead.

  
“Something tells me I’m not getting a break,” Bucky said.

  
They arrived at the auditorium in time for sound check. Same songs, same routine, different place. Bucky liked this part. He liked learning the new places, finding a space for himself. There was a legacy in nearly every place they performed. He could trace the lineage of this stage back and find the great performers who stood here before him. Fred and Ginger danced here once, and now here was Bucky. It was staggering if he let himself think about it for too long.

  
The countdown to showtime began. There was no sign of Steve. Bucky felt the nerves that always preceded the adrenaline that swelled when he walked onstage. There was an undercurrent of real anxiety, however, than ran deeper than his nightly nail biting. The knowledge that he had to go on, that the band was counting on him to go on, no matter if Steve was there or not, was the propellant that made him get up and walk out. He held his head up and made one foot move in front of the other despite the disappointment that settled into his bones with each step.

  
The shock of sound when he stepped into the light, surrounded by Sam, Nat, and Clint woke him up. There were chants of their name, indistinguishable shouts, applause, and it was as if any problem or worry that Bucky might have felt a moment ago belonged to a man in another world. He was here, he was alive, he was doing what he was meant to do.

  
As he turned to Sam to begin the first number, his eye caught on a figure standing in the wing. He was small, thin, and impossible to mistake for anyone else, even if he was cast into silhouette by a floodlight. Steve was there, watching.

  
Bucky was spurred on to new heights in his performance just by the proximity of Steve. He wanted to put on the best show he could, not just for Steve or the audience, but for himself. He was going to do his best tonight so that he would have nothing but pride in his performance. His determination was reflected in the energy on the rest of the stage. The band was ecstatic, they tore through the set with the kind of raw fury that could only be found organically in the moment.

  
Bucky was a sweating, stinking, smiling mess when he wished the crowd a final farewell after their encore. Natasha played them out with a solid, rhythmic riff and Bucky was grateful for it because the beat kept him from running offstage and tackling Steve. He had more energy than he knew how to manage.

  
Perhaps it was the high of the show, or the strange, low lighting of backstage, or maybe Bucky was blinded by Steve’s presence so much that he hardly saw the real man standing in front of him. It took him a moment to see Steve’s face. When he did, he stepped back in horror.

  
Steve’s left eye was swollen nearly shut and although he was smiling, it was with a split lip. His cheek had a scrape along the side that looked raw and uncared for, and when Bucky glanced down at Steve’s hands, he saw that they were bloodied.   
“Jesus.” Bucky said, alarmed. He took Steve by the forearm, careful not to hold on too tight Incase his sleeves concealed further injuries, and took him to the green room, where they could speak.

 

It ought to have been a moment of triumph. Instead, Bucky could hardly feel the rest of the room, could not hear the rest of the people milling around them, nor sense anything but Steve sitting in front of him. Steve, who looked so much smaller than the last time Bucky had seen him, dwarfed now by the large leather couch and Bucky’s jacket around his shoulders.

  
“Tell me,” Bucky asked.

  
“It’s not important,” Steve said, shrugging.

  
“Your face got bashed in. That’s pretty important,” Bucky wasn’t having it.

  
“I was on my way. Would have got here earlier, but I wanted to get some of prints for my portfolio,” Steve glanced down at a parcel by his side. The large Manila envelope leaned against his leg like a protective dog. “Some guys jumped me when I was heading to catch the train.”

  
“Why?” Bucky asked, feeling all the regret and retrospective protectiveness and the torn up anger that the story and Steve’s injuries provoked. He felt a sinking realization stir inside him and felt that he might already know why. The thought made him see red.

  
“It doesn’t matter.”

  
“Steve,” Bucky moved his chair closer, so that their knees brushed, so that Steve need only whisper for Bucky to hear the story.

  
“They called me a queer, alright? It’s not like it’s a secret or anything. Not like it’s the first time it’s happened.”

  
“Shit. Steve, I’m sorry. I should have been there. I—“ Bucky started. There were no words that could make it better, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. He reached one hand up to cup the back of Steve’s neck and leaned in closer.

  
“No.” Steve shook his head, but did not push Bucky away. “I can’t put this on you. I’m not going to bleed on you.”

  
“Steve,” Bucky exhaled a soft breath, caressed the back of his neck with one hand and took his hand with the other. Gently, he rubbed Steve’s knuckle, collecting the dried blood on his thumb. “It’s on me. I don’t care. I’m never going to wash you off.”   
Steve closed the distance between them, letting his lips rest against Bucky’s in an exhausted kiss. They were not running, and in that moment being there for Steve was all that Bucky wanted.

 

Natasha knocked on their door the next morning. Steve and Bucky had been awake long enough to doze in wordless, sleepy comfort and dress with casual conversation passed between them. Steve’s beaten face looked better in the daylight after being cleaned and dressed and the passage of a night’s sleep. The swelling had gone down.

  
“You certainly know how to make an entrance,” Natasha said, looking Steve over as she passed by Bucky, holding the door for her. “Feeling better today?”

  
“Yeah, thanks,” Steve said, looking at Natasha with wide eyes as she swayed into the room with her constant, unabashed confidence.

  
“Steve, this is Nat. Nat, this is Steve,” Bucky said and cleared his throat into the silence.

  
“I think we kind of figured that out,” Steve said. Nat laughed and gave Bucky a look of approval. “I saw your last two shows,” Steve said to Natasha, “You’re great.”

  
“You’re taking on the project, then?” Natasha asked.

  
“As long as you’re still willing to have me,” Steve said.

  
Natasha looked at Bucky and then rolled her eyes. He was giving her a look that spoke louder than any words any of them could say.

  
“I don’t think that’s a decision that can be unmade. Not that we would, Steve. You’re one of us now.”

  
Natasha rose from her seat and gave Bucky a look that indicated he ought to follow her. He did, into the hallway where she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. “You need to call Alexander,” She said, in a tone remarkably more businesslike than the soft one she had used with Steve. Bucky let out a groan and let his head fall forward in despair.

  
“Do I have to?” Bucky asked.

  
“What? Do you want another surprise visit from him?” Nat asked. They both knew that was the last thing anybody wanted. “If you don’t call, he’ll just show up.”

  
“Okay, I’ll call. Just, after coffee. I need a minute,” Bucky agreed. He was more or less certain that Alexander would be pleased that they had procured an artist and that their plan to produce a concept album was back on track, but he was not sure at all that Alexander would approve of Steve personally, especially in his current condition. The longer he could postpone a face to face meeting, the better.

  
As they headed back to the room, Bucky could hear Steve’s laugh. The sound alone was worth a million phone calls to Alexander and all the label executives the world could throw at them. Bucky found himself smiling like there was nowhere else he would rather be at the prospect of hearing Steve laugh like that again.

  
Turning the corner, however, he caught sight of the shiner on Steve’s left eye. The warmth vanished from Bucky’s chest just as fast as it bloomed there. He, Bucky, had been the reason for Steve’s suffering. Bucky shook his head, trying to clear the thought from his mind like an etch-a-sketch.

  
“What’s wrong?” Steve asked, pulling Bucky away.

  
“Nothing. Can’t a guy sit down and drink a cup of coffee?” Bucky asked, feeling like a yo-yo with the way he kept getting dragged away from the couch by his friends.

  
“You keep looking at my face,” Steve said, just short of accusingly.

  
“Maybe ‘cause you’re funny looking,” Bucky said, mouth upturned and eyebrows raised. He glanced both ways down the hallway before laying one on Steve’s lips. Steve let him linger just a little too long without letting him make it dirty.

  
“Quit,” Steve said, eventually, slipping away.

  
“I’m sorry,” Bucky said, still standing flush against Steve’s body.

  
“You don’t gotta be,” Steve said.

  
“No,” Bucky said, reaching toward Steve’s face, slowly and gently like he would with an injured animal. He pushed a lock of Steve’s hair back behind his ear and smoothed it down in a gestured far more intimate than the kiss they had shared only moments before. He cupped Steve’s cheek, bruised and mottled as it was, and skimmed his thumb over the scrape on his chin so softly that he did not shy away. “I’m sorry, Steve. Please, let me say it. I’m sorry.”

  
Steve looked down, unable to hold the eye contact any longer. Bucky’s anguish was worse than any of the physical injuries.

  
“I know,” Steve said. He brought his own hand up to Bucky’s. “I’m alright, Buck. It’s okay.”

  
“It’s not,” Bucky shook his head. “I just found you again.”

  
“I’m right here.”

  
It was Steve this time who kissed Bucky, reassuring him with each heartbeat that they were present, safe, alive.

 


	4. Chapter Four

“Who is the straightest guy in the band?” Steve asked, a few hours later, while Bucky sat with his head near the window. Bucky looked across the room where Sam and Clint sat engaged in a game of chess.

“Uh, probably Clint. Never really thought much about it before. Why?” Bucky asked.

  
“You should kiss him tonight,” Steve said as matter-of-factly as if he were announcing that grass was green.

  
“What? Like— just because?” Bucky asked, coughing on nothing.

  
“No. When you go out on stage tonight, you should kiss him, you know, if he wants. You do wild stuff all the time when you’re getting amped up to play. Haven’t you ever done that before?”

  
“Come to think of it, no. But yeah, that’s not bad,” Bucky considered, nodding. “HEY CLINT!” Bucky yelled. Clint jumped and dropped the rook he was holding.

  
“What?” Clint asked, turning around in his seat, looking startled in the extreme.

  
“What would you say if I kissed you tonight during the show?”

  
“I’d tell you that you ought to buy me dinner first, Barnes,” Clint said, laughing.

  
“You game, though?” Bucky asked.

  
“Yeah, sure,” Clint said, waving his hand behind him as he turned back to his game.

  
“Hey, how come you’re not trying to get these lips?” Sam asked, pouting at Bucky.

  
“Because you’d make Steve jealous. I’m trying to piss off the bigots, not break up,” Bucky said, to which Sam nodded in agreement and returned to the chessboard.   
“You took my queen,” Sam said.

  
“I heard that.” Bucky said.

 

  
When the lights came up, Bucky came out to the rumbling sound of Nat’s bass thundering throughout the auditorium. He felt it in his bones. Before they took their places, the adrenaline shot through him. He grabbed Clint at center stage and pressed their mouths together in a rough kiss. It was more like a handshake than anything laden with romance, a friendly touch of faces.

  
They heard the audience erupt into a cacophony of screams. They were into it. Bucky smiled against Steve’s—no, Clint’s—lips.

  
“Have a good show,” he said into Clint’s ear. Clint patted him on the shoulder and headed for his drums.

  
There, Bucky thought to himself. That was a good opening. He shot a smile over to the side of the stage and saw it returned by Steve with an approving nod.

  
The show itself was alive with more energy than they had ever played before. Bucky wouldn’t be so egotistical to say that it had anything to do with his mouth, but Clint drummed like he was on fire. He would have to give him a hard time about it later and fold in as many compliments as he possibly could.

  
When the lights went down and Bucky reached the side of the stage where Steve was waiting, he was greeted by a ferocious attack of lips and arms and teeth. It was all he could do to stand there and take it, holding himself up under the barrage of Steve’s assault. Steve reclaimed his lips, his neck, kissed along his collar and let his hands ruck up Bucky’s shirt with no regard for any onlookers. When he was done, Bucky was flushed and hot.

  
“Fuck, Steve, we’ve still got an encore to do,” Bucky said against Steve’s ear.

  
“Good,” Steve said, his eyes hazy raking up and down Bucky’s body with unabashed lust. “Go show them how good you look.”

  
Bucky could only imagine. He was half ready to walk off now and let the band pull an instrumental piece out of their ass. Hell, Clint could finally have that half-hour drum solo he had been dreaming about. That was all well and good in theory, but Bucky couldn’t walk away from a show and his band and the fans. Steve would still be there in another ten minutes.

  
He returned to the stage with his hair in a state and his face bright red. He didn’t even want to think about his pants, which he imagined were obscene. Natasha took one look at him and laughed. Sam just shook his head in amusement. They played the encore to an audience that was more enthusiastic than ever before. Perhaps, Bucky thought, he had stumbled upon a niche that he should revisit. This was going over much better than he anticipated.

  
In the dressing room, where they shucked off their sweaty, smelly performance clothes in favor of slightly less smelly street clothes and splashed cool water on their faces to bring themselves down from the high of the stage, the band was elated.   
“So,” Sam said, leaning on the counter next to Bucky, “That went well.”

  
“Oh,” Bucky said, as if he hadn’t been there “did it?”

  
Sam gave him a sharp punch on the shoulder for his cheek.

  
“You ready for the other shoe to drop?” Sam asked, “We’re going to catch hell for your antics.”

  
“Oh, come on,” Bucky said. “If Bowie can go around in drag and make millions of dollars, I can kiss Clint without everybody shitting themselves. Let’s just enjoy tonight, okay?”

  
“Alright, but that means we are going to really enjoy tonight,” Sam said.

 

  
The party took up a whole floor of the hotel. It wasn’t an unfamiliar experience, Bucky had been to a fair few after shows that raged through the night. In a way, it was part of the job. The difference was that this was their party, for their band, after their show. It was a surreal realization that left him momentarily stunned when he was surrounded by guests arriving just to tell him congratulations, bringing him gifts and tokens of their admiration.

  
Bucky found that, although it was a unique and unreal kind of fun that he wanted and enjoyed, there was a part of him that just wanted to be alone with Steve. They kept together, side by side, but that only made it harder. Just being near him, close enough to touch, to breathe in the smell of him, to feel the warmth of him, was a temptation too terrible to stand. He couldn’t abandon this party. He had a responsibility to be there.

  
They wandered into a suite that smelled earthy and thick with smoke. Steve coughed and Bucky’s eyes shot to him with instant concern. Steve shook his head with a rueful smile.

  
“I’ll wait in the hall,” Steve said.

  
“No,” Bucky said, “I don’t have to smoke. It’s cool.”

  
Steve leaned against the wall in the hallway, his face pinched and downcast. Bucky stood before him. He placed two fingers under Steve’s chin to lift his head up.

  
“What’s wrong?” Bucky asked.

  
“I don’t want to keep you from doing something you like,” Steve said. Bucky huffed and shook his head.

  
“I like you,” he pressed a kiss to Steve’s lips but didn’t let it linger too long. He knew that once he got started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. “C’mon,” he said when they parted. “let’s go get a drink.”

  
They found alcohol pouring freely in Natasha’s room. She was sitting on her bed in a satin bathrobe, ankles crossed like a dainty socialite, drinking from a plastic cup with her pinky up. There was nothing that Nat could not turn both a night of debauchery and an event fit for royalty.

  
“Boys!” Nat said, throwing her arms out wide in welcome, “I was wondering where you got to.”

  
“We’ve been two rooms over,” Bucky said, shrugging.

  
“Too far,” Natasha shook her head, throwing her hair back to sweep across the bed as she did. “Come here, join me,” she said.  
They sat next to her on the bed while others milled around, talking, pouring drinks, laughing, and changing music on the record player. Natasha put her hand on Bucky’s knee and caressed Steve’s hair with the other.

  
“You boys,” she emphasized the word boys in a fond way, like a much older woman about to give some meaningful life advice. “You are so beautiful.” She looked between them both. “I hope you’re fucking like rabbits.”

  
“Natasha, how much have you had?” Bucky asked.

  
“Not enough,” she held her cup aloft. “Somebody get me another!” She demanded. As if conjured from thin air, Clint appeared with a fresh cup. He kissed her cheek and handed her the cup. Bucky felt himself relax a little. He was glad they were keeping an eye on each other.

  
They were keeping an eye on each other, Bucky realized. The look that passed between Nat and Clint was highly reminiscent of the heat that stirred up every time he looked at Steve. Suddenly, he felt like an intruder despite all the other people wandering around the room. He was uncomfortably aware that he was sitting on Natasha’s bed with them, feeling like he and Steve were two too many there. He cleared his throat and looked meaningfully at Steve.

  
Without words, he and Steve rose and left Nat and Clint alone in their bubble together. They were attached by the lips, horizontal on the bed with no concern for the onlookers at all by the time Steve and Bucky looked back.

  
“I think they’ve got the right idea,” Steve said.

  
“You wanna fuck like rabbits?” Bucky asked, already laughing about Natasha’s very serious life advice.

  
“Come on,” Steve said, heading down the hall.

  
Instead of stopping at their room, Steve turned toward the staircase. Bucky had misgivings, staircases being loud, echoing, cold, uncomfortable places, but he would have followed Steve to hell itself if he wanted. Steve had better ideas.

  
They emerged onto the roof, from which the whole city looked like a sea of stars. The air brought clarity to Bucky’s senses, allowing him to see Steve in a fresh light. Steve was radiant against the dark sky. Here, in the night, on top of the world, he looked as if he could do anything, as if he could be anything, and here he was choosing to be with Bucky.

  
At last, after hours of waiting, Bucky held Steve and kissed him like he had been dying to. They went to their knees together onto the smooth cement. Bucky took off his jacket and set it down for Steve to lie on. Steve was a picture on his back, gazing up at Bucky with so much want and trust. It was an image that Bucky would hold onto forever, and one that was too much to bear in the moment. He fixed it in his mind.

  
Their lips met like they were made to do nothing else. Steve pulled Bucky down to him with his hands in his hair, and though Bucky would have gone willingly, the direction from Steve was a welcome thing. He wasted no time reaching down to Steve’s belt, working it open and slipping into his pants. Steve was hard against Bucky’s palm and rutted up against him as soon as he felt his touch. Bucky pushed Steve’s briefs down and took him in hand.

  
Bucky felt more than heard Steve moan against his mouth. He moved his hips against Steve’s thigh and felt Steve move in return, thrusting into his hand. He wanted to hear Steve moan again, wanted to know he was the source of Steve’s pleasure. He replaced his hand with his mouth and was rewarded.

  
“Bucky,” Steve said, twisting his fingers into his hair. Bucky brought his left hand up to encourage Steve. He wanted him to keep his hand there, liked knowing he was giving Steve what he wanted. Bucky set a rhythm, bobbing his head and licking Steve with his tongue. Steve dictated the speed.

  
Bucky ran his hands up Steve’s thighs. He held Steve’s hips and moved his thumbs in soothing circles while he sucked and swallowed around Steve’s cock. With every breath he took, he was overwhelmed by the scent of his lover, the feeling of skin under his hands was better than anything else he had ever touched. The taste that leaked from the tip of his cock as Buck flicked his tongue across the slit was intoxicating.

  
“Oh, oh, Buck,” Steve said. Bucky could feel Steve’s legs trembling, could feel the tension across his abdomen, his balls tightening under his hand. “Please don’t stop.”

  
Bucky redoubled his efforts. Steve was at his mercy and Bucky wanted to be merciful. He felt Steve’s legs tense, felt his hand tighten so hard in his hair that his eyes watered, and then his mouth filled. Steve’s release flooded them both.

  
Bucky swallowed down what he could and leaned back on his haunches. He took a great, gasping breath and looked back down at Steve, who was breathing heavily, looking dazed. Steve reached for Bucky’s hand and pulled him down to lie at his side. He kissed Bucky and licked down his chin to clean up the seed that had spilled down his mouth.

  
“I’ve never come like that before,” Steve said, low and quiet.

  
“On a rooftop?” Bucky asked with a smirk.

  
They watched the stars overhead in silence and listened to the sounds of traffic around them.

  
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Buck asked. He looked at Steve’s face from the corner of his eye. His black eye was impressive, bruised all the way around and down his cheek. His split lip had mended more than either of them had anticipated in such a short time, but the rough kisses that passed between them left him looking raw again.

  
“Not really,” Steve said, bringing a hand up to touch his lip, absentmindedly. “It’s a good feeling.”

  
“Whatever happened to your arm?” Steve asked.

  
Bucky flinched. He figured it would be one of the million things from their past that Steve wouldn’t bring up. He tried not to think about it, the accident, the injury, the long day and night before anybody took him to a doctor. It had happened when they were so young and the scars were deep, not just on his flesh. Bucky had been left with a cast all the way up to his collarbone for months, and then with a sling after that. He remembered forgetting what it felt like to have a left arm, the imbalance of it. Being taken away from Steve not long afterward had felt much the same.

  
“It got better. I had a couple surgeries. I still can’t play the guitar for a long time or anything, definitely not on stage. We’re lucky to have Sam,” Bucky went quiet for a while. He looked back up at the stars for a while instead of watching Steve’s concerned eyes roving over his face. “It still aches in cold weather.”

  
“You saved me, that day,” Steve said.

  
Bucky nodded. He knew that. If he hadn’t pushed Steve out of the way, it would have been Steve, crushed under the car backing out of the driveway. He thought about it more often than wished, when his thoughts turned melancholy in the dark.

  
“We saved each other a lot,” Bucky said. To spare himself more reminiscing, he kissed Steve again. Then he kissed Steve simply because he wanted to.

 

  
Everyone felt like they were moving in slow motion the next day. There was an understanding among the crew because they each felt as dreadful as the person sitting beside them. There was only one thing that any of them longed for and it was, if not the sweet release of death, at least a respite in the form of a long sleep in the dark. There was little they could do however, scheduled as they were to drive to Georgia to begin the next phase of the tour.

  
It was with mercy that they stopped at a diner off the highway in the afternoon. The slowing of the motor under Bucky was the best medicine he could imagine after sitting with his head in his hands to shut out the worst of the daylight while the bus moved under him.

  
“Oh thank god.” Bucky said as they entered the restaurant. He slouched toward a corner table and collapsed into a booth, leaning against paneled wall. Steve sat next to Bucky, mimicking his posture, leaning on Bucky’s shoulder. Across the table, Natasha looked just as rough. She groaned and put her head on the table while a waitress brought water for everyone.   
“Coffee?” She asked.

  
“Oh for the love of all that is holy, yes,” Nat said, lifting her head up enough to acknowledge the woman, who looked a little alarmed in her pastel apron. Steve glanced up with as much of a reassuring a smile as he could muster despite his groggy, red eyes.

  
“Ma’am, I promise, we are going to tip you really, really well.” Steve said.

  
The waitress relaxed at Steve’s words. The rag-tag group of misfits that had wandered into her diner may have thrown her for a loop, but with the reassurance that they would not leave her hanging at the end of the meal, she welcomed them in like regulars. Steve shrugged at Bucky’s questioning look when she had turned her back.

  
“What? Look at us.” Steve said, gesturing at the scene.

  
It wasn’t hard to see what Steve meant. They were a patchwork of people from all over the country, wearing suede, leather, and corduroy in loud colors, smelling like pot and the remnants of booze from last night’s affair. Respectively, they spoke at volumes from pained whispers to deafening shouts depending on their stage of recovery.

  
Had it been a decade earlier, they might have been called hippies. Now, well, Bucky thought, who the hell knew what to call them? His generation was too jaded to believe in peace and free love for all. They were something different, raw, cynical and yet to find themselves. Bucky could see how that might intimidate some people.

  
As if his thought beckoned her forth, the waitress returned to their table. She looked far more concerned than she had when they first arrived.

  
“Excuse me. Is any of you Mr. Barnes?” She asked.

  
Bucky blinked up at her in a long moment of incomprehension.

  
“Uh, yeah. That’s me.” Bucky said at last, after Steve nudged him with his elbow.

  
“There’s a phone call for you.” She said.

  
Steve had to scoot out of the bunk in order to let Bucky out, and by the time he stood, he knew there was only one person on earth who could be on the line.

“Barnes, I’ve been making calls up and down the eastern seaboard trying to track your ass down. You have a lot to answer for…” Alexander began.

 

 

Bucky returned to the table in a daze. He watched the road crew drinking their coffee, talking, eating waffles. They didn’t know. They could not know, yet. It would be up to Bucky to tell them and that thought alone made Bucky want to run screaming down the highway and never look back. Worse were the curious faces of the people at his table. There were Sam, Clint, and Nat looking at him in the blissful moment of ignorance before the truth spewed all over them from Bucky’s own mouth. And then, oh no. Oh god, then there was Steve. How could he tell Steve?

  
“What happened?”

  
“Bucky? Are you okay?”

  
“Hey, man, what’s going on.”

  
“Buck?”

  
All the voices at once were too much. He couldn’t speak when everybody else was talking. Maybe that was good, maybe if everybody else just kept speaking, he wouldn’t have to say anything and life could just keep going. Bucky let the thoughts roll over him while he gaped in silence, letting his friends surround him, letting his mind spin. Eventually, silence washed over the room. He had to say it.

  
“I—“ He swallowed. “We—“ How could he? Better rip the bandaid off, he thought. “We just got fired,” He said. “Hydra records has dissolved The Winter Soldier’s contract. We’re done.”

  
There was nothing left to say. Bucky wanted the noise back, wished that somebody would say something. People looked around, each waiting for somebody else to ask the first question. Nobody wanted to speak first.

  
“Why?” Nat asked. Her knuckles were white, fists clenched on the table.

  
“Alexander was at the show last night,” Bucky said. He could feel his face turning red. It wasn’t his fault, he knew that, but every molecule of himself was screaming that it was. He felt at fault.

  
“This is bullshit.” Sam said, standing and walking out of the restaurant. One of the sound techs followed him out with a meaningful look at Bucky. It felt like a kind look, so Bucky didn’t follow. He didn’t think his legs would carry him anyway.   
“Our show last night was fucking great. What the hell is his problem?” Clint asked.

  
“There’s a morality clause in our contract,” Bucky said, his voice sounding dull and unreal to his own ears.

  
“That’s— oh,” Clint said, losing the will to argue. Bucky realized that his feelings of guilt would be just as heavy in Clint. The sinking feeling in his gut grew stronger. He wished he could evaporate into the air and simply disappear. It had to be easier than staying here with dozens of eyes staring at him like he had an answer.

  
“Hey,” Nat said “I see where you’re going with this. Don’t you dare.” She was on fire, looking as fierce as Bucky had ever seen her.

  
“We never heard a word from the label when Bucky was making out with half our female audience after shows. We never had a problem when I got arrested for impersonating a police officer to get us out of a speeding ticket. The label sure as hell never said a word when we had to fire our first guitarist because he turned out to have a collection of creepy Nazi memorabilia at his house. I still have nightmares about that asshole. But this, this, is what makes the label go ‘nuh-uh, you’ve stepped over the line. We can’t have rockstars kissing on stage at a show. Next thing you know they’ll be burning American flags, writing songs about the Communist Manifesto, and giving out free abortions.’”

  
“Holy shit, Nat,” Clint said, leaning back in his seat. “Tell us how you really feel!”

  
“I feel like this is cowardly and pathetic. I feel like we are in the middle of a tour and have people counting on us. I feel like this is not the end because we aren’t some record label’s stooges.”

  
“Fuck Hydra and fuck Pierce,” Bucky said, nodding in agreement with Natasha’s words.

  
“Hey, guys,” Steve said, “I know someone who might be able to help. I’m going to make a call.”

  
The energy from Natasha’s speech lasted for about fifteen minutes. It was long enough for everyone to eat their hangover breakfasts before the anxiety and depression that accompanied the low-energy slump of digestion set in. Bucky went outside to have a cigarette and stand by the bus. Steve was still on the phone.

  
“So, what are we going to do now?” Sam asked. “We can’t pay everybody, certainly not what they would have been making on a Hydra tour. Even if we set up our own tour, we don’t have the resources to run something on this scale.”

  
“I know,” Bucky said. He had been thinking the same thing. A lot of people were going to have to go home. People were going to lose a lot of money. No matter how they looked at it, it was going to be remembered as a failure on the part of The Winter Soldier. Good luck bouncing back from this one.

  
Steve bounded out of the restaurant and up toward Bucky. Bucky barely raised his arms up in time to catch him. Steve’s arms wrapped around Bucky’s neck, Bucky’s clinging to Steve’s small waist by instinct alone. For a moment, he froze as Steve’s lips touched his. Then the reality of their situation came crashing down around him: There was nothing left for them to risk, and everyone they were with had already seen them together for days. Who were they trying to impress? Bucky kissed Steve back for all he was worth, with every ounce of passion he had felt all day. When Steve parted, he was breathless, but even better, he was smiling.

  
“I have good news,” Steve said.

 

“Shield Records?” Bucky repeated. Steve had dropped the name so casually, Bucky was not sure if he had heard right.   
“The Shield Records?” Nat asked. Steve nodded, still smiling.

  
“Founded by Margaret Carter and used, among other things, to create secret recordings that helped the United States of America win the Second World War? The same Shield Records that now is famous for facilitating the British Invasion? That Shield Records?” Sam said, leaning forward and staring Steve down with all seriousness.

  
“You nerd,” Bucky said, looking at Sam with interest.

  
“What? I have interests,” Sam said, before fixing his attention back on Steve. “Please tell me this is for real.”

  
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Margaret is my friend’s aunt—“

  
“Wait, Sharon?” Bucky nearly shouted.

  
“Yes,” Steve all but rolled his eyes.

  
“Holy shit,” Bucky said, more to himself than to Steve. “That explains so much.”

  
“Anyway,” Steve went on, “She likes your work and—“

  
“Sharon?” Bucky asked again.

  
“No, Margaret,” Steve said, “Well, obviously yes, Sharon too.”

  
Bucky could hardly hear over the excitement rushing through him. Not only did they personally kind of have a connection to Margaret Carter, she had listened to The Winter Soldier’s music and had liked it. His day had taken him from the worst feelings of misery all the way up to euphoric career wet dream material.

  
“If you are willing to skip a tour date or two, they are willing to fly you out to discuss the particulars,” Steve said, as if he were quoting the conversation precisely.

  
“I don’t think we even have tour dates anymore. What, exactly, would we be discussing?” Nat asked, crossing her arms and tilting her head just a little.

  
“Shield wants to sign you,” Steve said.

 

  
It ought to have been cause for celebration, but all Bucky could see was Steve’s face. He put on a brave front for the sake of the happy people around him, but Bucky knew him better than that. He could see the gears turning behind Steve’s eyes. There was something bittersweet going on there.

  
“Let’s take a walk,” Bucky said. Steve nodded. They turned up a road were the cement gave way to gravel, their boots crunching along to fill the silence between them.

  
“So I guess this is it, then,” Steve said.

  
“What do you mean?” Bucky asked.

  
“Well, you’re headed to DC soon, right? Then probably another tour,” Steve shrugged.

  
Bucky had not had time to consider where he would be later this afternoon. Somehow, Steve already had plans for the next several months mapped out in his head. Usually, this was a trait that Bucky admired in Steve, but now it sounded as if these plans did not involve Steve staying with the band. Although he had hardly been with them for a month, this seemed impossible. A future without Steve was one Bucky did not want to imagine.

  
“I guess,” Bucky said, “but—“

  
“That’s good,” Steve interrupted him. He looked ahead as he spoke, hands resolutely at his sides.

  
“You don’t want to come?” Bucky asked.

  
“It doesn’t sound like that’s an option,”

  
“Well I don’t want to do it,” Bucky said. The words came out with more certainty than he intended. “Not without you, I mean.”

  
“Bucky, that’s,” Steve let out a low sigh.

  
“Look,” Bucky said, stopping to turn to Steve. Steve did not meet his eyes. “When we were kids…” Bucky hardly knew what to say. “I can’t ask you to forgive me. You can be mad at me forever, and I probably deserve it, but I am never going to leave you like that again. I won’t disappear. I missed you every goddamn day for years, Steve. It killed me, and I can’t stand the idea of going through that again. If you want to leave, I understand, but—“

  
“Bucky,” Steve put his hands up, “Buck. Hang on.”

  
Bucky stopped. He didn’t know where he was going with his speech, really. If Steve was going to save him the trouble of embarrassing himself and just break up with him, maybe that was for the best.

  
“Bucky,” Steve said again, “is that how you remember it?”

  
Bucky nodded.

  
“Buck, we were a couple of teenagers. I was in love with you from the day I met you. All I ever, ever thought about was kissing you, getting my hands on you, spending a couple of minutes alone with you anywhere we could. Bucky, I wanted you so bad I could barely see straight. When you finally made a move, I thought I died and went to heaven.”

  
Steve was blushing. The rush of nostalgia was making the ache in Bucky’s chest infinitely more painful. If Steve could just pull the knife out instead of twisting it with kindness, Bucky imagined it would be easier. Instead, Steve kept going.

  
“So, yeah. We got caught together. We were kissing, okay. You had your hand down my pants, alright. We were a couple of teenagers, Buck. It wasn’t the kind of terrible, evil sin they made us think it was. We didn’t hurt anybody. We both wanted it. I was in love with you. They made us feel like being in love was the worst thing anybody could do to another person. Then they took you away and never let us say goodbye.”

  
Steve’s eyes were watering. Just watching Steve cry would have made Bucky shatter, but hearing him say those words, telling him that he had been in love? It was too much. Bucky closed the distance between them and kissed Steve for all the times they had been deprived of kisses.

  
“I’m so sorry, Steve,” Bucky said. “I wanted to tell you,” he said, kissing him again, “I loved you so much. I do— I love you.”

  
“I love you, too, Bucky,” Steve said. “Tell me it doesn’t end here, on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.”

  
“It doesn’t end,” Bucky said.

 

 


	5. Chapter Five

Bucky sat on the bus, scribbling in his notebook while the rest of the band and crew talked over plans and made phone calls. As much as Steve’s presence was a comfort, the time to be alone with his thoughts was a luxury he sorely needed. The words that had been stopped up inside his brain for months came rushing out onto the page in a flood. Bucky couldn’t have stemmed it if he wanted to.

  
He leaned back and sighed, running his fingers through his hair and looking up at the ceiling when he was finished. His hand ached and his back was stiff from leaning over the page, but there were words to go with the melody in his head. He had done it.

  
“Hey,” Sam’s voice was cautious. He took the seat across the aisle from Bucky and sat to face him. “You okay?”

  
“Better now, I think,” Bucky said. He held up the page full of chicken scratches to show Sam the progress. Sam’s eyes went wide.

  
“Damn. Some good’s come out of all this, at least.”

  
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, “I don’t want to jinx us, but I’m not going to count us out just yet.”

  
“Sorry I had to bail back there,” Sam said, nodding at the diner across the parking lot. “I thought if I didn’t walk away I was going to explode. Sometimes the best way to handle a situation is, you know, not to handle it.”

  
“Hey, man. I get it,” Bucky said.

  
“You do,” Sam agreed. He was silent for some time, then as if making up his mind, spoke again. “You know Riley?” It was a heavy question, one Bucky felt as if there was a right answer to.

  
“Maybe?” Bucky said. Sam looked disappointed.

  
“He mixed half the songs on our last album, man. Come on,” Sam said.

  
Bucky remembered him with that reminder, of course. He had been professional and friendly, but in the wake of the year since recording he had slipped into the recesses of Bucky’s mind. Clearly, the same was not so for Sam.

  
“Oh, right. What about him?” Bucky asked.

  
“We met up again in New York. Been sending letters since then mostly. He’s,” Sam rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know what he is, alright. I just know when you got that call from Pierce and got read the riot act about a bullshit morality clause, all I could think about was Riley. That’s why I walked out.”

  
“Oh,” Bucky said. This was a conversation he was unaccustomed to having, but he had more experience in Sam’s role. He was out of his depth. “So are you two?”

  
Sam shrugged. “A few times.”

  
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bucky asked, equal parts happy for Sam and annoyed at being left out.

  
“Look dude, not all of us make announcements every time we get laid. Also, it’s not like you’ve had a lot of time to talk to any of us.”

  
It was true. The words hit Bucky like cold water to the face, which meant that they were undeniable. He had been wrapped up in his own problems and the freedom of being with Steve so intensely that he had shirked his duties with the band. He nodded.

  
“Shit,” Bucky said, “you’re right.”

  
“It’s cool. Just be here now, okay?” Sam said.

 

  
They arrived in DC the next day, all of The Winter Soldier, including Steve. There was a car waiting at the airport to take them to the recording studio. The driver greeted them by name.

  
“Miss Romanov?” He asked.

  
“Yes,” Natasha said, hoisting her bag further up on her shoulder.

  
“Please let me take that. I’m Happy, I’ll be assisting you while you’re in town.”

  
“Sorry,” Clint interjected, “Your happy to be assisting us, or your name’s—“

  
“Happy. Yeah. Happens a lot,” the driver said, rolling his eyes.

  
“That’s different,” Sam said. “Cool.”

  
They piled into the car and let Happy throw their luggage into the trunk.

  
“You okay, Steve?” Bucky asked, glancing to his left. Steve chuckled under his breath and rolled the window down.

  
“Fine. I’ve just never been in a limo before. It just hit me, what you’re doing.”

  
“Hasn’t hit me yet,” Bucky said. His face drew into a contemplative frown. “I hope we’re not making a mistake.”

  
Natasha leaned forward from her seat and took Bucky’s hand.

  
“However this shakes out, we can change our minds,” She said.

  
The studio was less imposing than the Hydra building in New York, though it stood as proud in its own right. Shield had been on the landscape of music for so long that they had no need to impress anyone. They were an entity. To walk into their headquarters was like walking into the hallowed halls of a museum, except, Bucky noted, it was alive and bursting with continued creation.

  
“Happy. Good, you’re right on time,” A tall woman in towering heels joined them as they entered the building. “They’re just getting started.”

  
“Thanks, Pepper,” Happy said.

  
Happy ushered them into a meeting room several stories up. It took a moment for Bucky’s brain to take in what his eyes were seeing. The room was brightly lit, expertly decorated, and contained not only Margaret Carter, but also Tony Stark. If he had anticipated a meeting with low-level representatives (which he had), this was precisely the opposite of that.

  
“Good afternoon,” Margaret said. Introductions were made, hands were shaken, and Bucky worried that his palms were too sweaty as he shook the hand of the owner of one of the best record labels in the world. She did not smile, but her voice was warm and welcoming. “Please have a seat. Before we get started, would you care for a drink?”

  
Bucky’s throat felt like sandpaper. He desperately wanted something to take the edge off the panic rising in the back of his mind, but something told him that chugging a glass of vodka in front of some of the most powerful people in business may put him at a disadvantage. He asked for water. The request was echoed by all.

  
“Jarvis,” Margaret said, “We’d like some water, please.”

  
A man came in with a drink cart. The unreal ness of the day intensified as Bucky started to wonder if Margaret Carter had a butler. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the man had vanished again, leaving them all with glasses of water.

  
“Alright, let’s begin. My niece has been ringing me day and night, telling me to get a meeting on the books with you. She is a woman to be taken seriously, so here we are.”

  
“Thank you, Ms. Carter,” Sam said.

  
“Peggy, please.”

  
“Now, I understand you have been working with Hydra Records?”

  
“Yes,” Natasha said.

  
“Tell me about that,” Peggy said.

  
They did, in exhaustive detail. They spoke about the delayed paychecks, the money that mysteriously vanished altogether, the phone calls to Bucky in the middle of the night, and how Alexander somehow always knew exactly where Bucky was at all times. They talked about demands for new music when they had no means to make it, the checkups, the inspections, the feeling that they did not own their lives. Once the floodgates opened, it was hard to close them. It was as if by speaking their grievances aloud, they could see how poorly they had been treated.

  
“Last week, our contract was terminated,” Natasha finished.

  
“That’s a good thing,” Tony Stark said. All eyes swiveled to him. “You don’t have to worry about breaking a contract, and there’s nothing to buy out. Getting fired sucks, but from a legal standpoint, you’re in a good position. Your manager was a grade-A asshole, by the way. I’ll have legal look into it when I get back to New York.”

  
“As usual, Tony makes several good points,” Peggy said. “Which brings us to ours: We would like to sign The Winter Soldier.”   
“We would like that, too,” Bucky said, looking at his band mates. His eyes fell on Steve. “We have some conditions, of course.”   
The rest of the meeting was a dance of negotiations. It was not the struggle to which Bucky had become accustomed. Instead, it was an agreeable discussion, where some compromises fell into place and each party found what they wanted.

  
“So, Shield Records is an affiliate of Stark Industries. That’s pretty much why I’m here,” Tony said, kicking his feet up on the table. “You’re based in New York, right?”

  
“That’s right,” Bucky said, hoping against hope this was going where he thought.

  
“We want to make the move into the New York scene. There’s a lot going on that we want to get in on. We’re putting a studio in my Manhattan building—top of the line— and we want you to work from there.”

  
“You don’t want us to relocate?” Bucky asked.

  
“Heavens, no,” Peggy said.

  
Steve and Bucky didn’t bother trying to hide the smile they shared at the news.

  
“There’s one other thing,” Bucky said. “Steve Rogers is our visual artist moving forward. He designs our album covers, posters, merchandise, anything with our name on it goes through him. We want him to be present when we are on tour, during shows, and whenever we need him as a band. He needs to be there to capture our art in his own art. This is non-negotiable.”

  
“Hmm…” Peggy shifted some papers as she thought it over.

  
Tony looked at each member of the band, all of whom were stone faced, looking right back at him.

  
“Sharon brought this up when we spoke. I don’t imagine there is any talking you out of it?” Peggy asked.

  
“No,” Bucky said.

  
“And you are dedicated to this commitment?” Peggy asked Steve. “This is something you want?”

  
“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said.

  
“Then I don’t see why not,” Peggy said. “Steve, due to the amount of time you are to spend with the group, you’ll be paid the same as each of the band members and considered a member of the band in your own right. Is that agreeable?”

  
It was.

 

  
The lights came up and they made their entrance. Bucky felt lighter than he had in months, walking onto the stage like a new man. The acoustics in the amphitheater were sublime, echoing a deafening and massive crowd back at him. Not only had they salvaged the tour, they had moved their shows to larger venues to account for the increased crowds. Between the better equipment and great crew, they sounded better than ever before. There was no question in Bucky’s mind, however, that the biggest difference over the last several months was that he and the rest of the band were simply happier now.

  
“How’s everybody doing tonight?” Bucky asked. He was answered by a cacophonous roar. “Let’s thank The Gauntlet for starting this off with a bang.” There was another wave of applause and cheers from the crowd. Bucky glanced over his shoulder to make sure that everybody was ready.

Clint blew him a kiss, Bucky flipped him the bird. They played “Ghost Story” and the amphitheater erupted into song along with them. They heard the audience sing along with their music and saw people wearing their merchandise with Steve’s art on it. It was becoming a familiar experience, but Bucky could not imagine a day when it would be anything less than extraordinary.

  
“We’re The Winter Soldier,” Bucky said, “please give a big hand to Natasha on the bass.” Bucky made a sweeping gesture toward Nat and the crowd gave her every ounce of love she was owed. “Here we have Clint on the drums,” Buck said, going to stand next to the drum kit. Clint added more intricacies to the rhythm he had been playing under Bucky’s words. “The man to my right needs no introduction— Sam Wilson, ladies and gentlemen!” Buck shouted.

  
“We’ve got some new stuff for you tonight,” Bucky said. To Bucky’s surprise, the crowd sent up the biggest wall of sound that he had heard all night. He had expected a light smattering of applause, perhaps some casual interest. Instead, it was like the audience was begging for it. Sam picked up his acoustic guitar and played the first chord.

  
This was slower, a dreamy melody that Bucky wrote on his big, clunky guitar in the middle of the night when he could sneak away from listeners. He sang with his eyes closed and while he did, he pictured Steve and nobody else.

  
“Forgiveness is what I can’t ask from you/

But they never changed our hearts/

When they put us in the dark/

So I am giving you the thing I know is true”

  
Natasha and Clint joined in a swell of sound for the chorus, bringing the song to a crescendo, and Bucky poured his heart into the song, singing it for everything it was worth.

  
“Come what may/

I’m here to stay/

I am yours, so darling please be mine/

Say you’re with me/

Fight me, kiss me/

Just never fear that I’ll leave you behind/

I am with you to the end of the line”

The only thing better than playing The Winter Soldier’s new music live was walking off stage at the end of a show. At each venue, in every cinderblock hallway behind every stage, illuminated by fluorescent lights next to stacks of equipment, was the steady and unchanging presence of Steve. Bucky exchanged thanks and hellos with some local crewmen heading out to begin the process of breaking down microphone stands and lights, but his eyes were already fixed on Steve, breaking into a smile and heading down the hall toward him.

  
“You heard it?” Bucky asked.

  
Steve did not answer, but instead took Bucky’s hand and brought it to his chest above his heart. He stepped in closer and brought their lips together, so that Bucky could feel Steve’s heartbeat as they kissed, speeding up and pounding under his hand. Bucky held him, unconcerned about any onlookers.

  
“You wrote a ballad for me?” Steve said, with a tone of disbelief hanging in the air between them.

  
“You found me,” Bucky said, “I’ll write you a million love songs, if that’s what you want.”

 

 


End file.
